I want to bring a message today outside of what I said I would do in Galatians. We'll get back to that next week. I'm looking forward to that with you in Galatians 5. But this week, considering the news of Francis' grandfather, I was led in my thoughts to this sermon. And I want to read to you from the book of Luke, if you want to turn to the book of Luke. And we're going to begin in verse 41 after we pray. Father, thank you that we can to the Lord Jesus fly, pursued by all of our sin. pursued even by the wrath of God against us because of our sin into the bosom of the Lord Jesus Christ, the only refuge, the only anchor for our soul pursued because of our sin, finding rest in you. We pray, Lord, that we would so see the Lord Jesus as everything in our salvation and not look again to ourselves, but look with admiration and worship to him at all times. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. The title of today's sermon is the shortest verse in all of scripture, Jesus wept. And I want to read these verses to you from Luke chapter 19. There are three places I'm aware of in scripture that record Jesus weeping. And this is one of them. We'll read the other two in a minute. So our scripture for today is in Luke 19. Jesus had ridden into Jerusalem on a colt. And when he was come near, it says in verse 41, When he was come near, he beheld the city, the city of Jerusalem, and he wept, he wept over it, saying, If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace, but now they are hid from thine eyes, For the day shall come upon thee, that thine enemies shall cast a trench about thee, and compass thee round, and keep thee in on every side, and shall lay thee even to the ground, and thy children within thee. And they shall not leave in thee one stone upon another, because thou knewest not the time of thy visitation. The visitation he's speaking of is his own visitation coming into the world. In these two words, the title of our message today, Jesus Wept, there is an ocean of revelation that reveal to us the tender compassion of the Lord Jesus Christ. Remember, that's what scripture is written to reveal, the heart and character of our Savior. Three times in scripture we read that Jesus wept. Here, before riding into Jerusalem, our Lord paused. He looked upon that city and wept over it. He did not weep for its buildings. He wept for its people. He wept for the Jews, who were his own people after the flesh. They were not his people in heart, yet he wept for them. Because their city would soon be destroyed for their willful rejection of their own Messiah. And then again, in John chapter 11 verse 35, Jesus wept when he saw Mary and the Jews sorrowing at the death of Lazarus. Lazarus had died. Before he died, Mary and Martha sent messengers to Jesus in John chapter 11. And Jesus deliberately waited until after he died to come. And they met him, the two sisters met him, first Martha and then Mary. And then at the grave it says that Jesus wept when he saw Mary and the Jews sorrowing at the death of Lazarus. He felt sorrow for his friends. Their suffering became a burden to his own soul. Think about that. He was touched by the feeling of their sorrow, their helplessness before the consequences of sin. And then the third place in scripture where it is recorded that Jesus wept is in Hebrews chapter 5. If you want to turn to Hebrews chapter 5. And so these three cases where Jesus wept teach us about the Lord Jesus and his compassion, his tender compassion for sinners. And each one of them brings a new message, a new lesson to us. And let me give you those lessons at the outset. First, in Hebrews chapter 5 and verse 7, we're going to read this scripture. We're going to see that Jesus wept. He wept as a man of sorrows because he bore the consequences of the sins of his people. He Himself bore our sins, and He felt the sorrow of them. Hebrews chapter 5 verse 7 says, Who in the days of His flesh, when He had offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears unto Him that was able to save Him from death, and He was heard in that He feared, though He were a Son, yet learned He obedience by the things which He suffered, and being made perfect perfect as our Savior, He became the author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey Him in the obedience of faith. And so, let us consider this last case first. Jesus wept in agony because the sins of His people were made his sins. It says in 1 Peter 2 verse 24, who his own self bear our sins in his own body on the tree. And then in 2 Corinthians 5 verse 21 it says, God has made him sin for us. He who knew no sin was made sin for us that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. And then, Christ's agony of soul was expressed prophetically by Job in the book of Job. After Job's friends troubled him by their miserable counsel and comfort. And he told his friends in prophecy, Have pity upon me, have pity upon me, O ye my friends, for the hand of God hath touched me. That's in Job 19 verse 21. And then in Psalm 69, the Lord Jesus spoke of the reproach and shame he felt because the sins of his people were laid upon him and became his to bear. In Psalm 69 verse 20 he said, Reproach hath broken my heart. This reproach for sin. Reproach hath broken my heart and I am full of heaviness and I looked for some to take pity. But there was none, and for comforters, but I found none. They gave me also gall for my meat, and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink." That's from Psalm 69 and verse 20 and 21. The Lord Jesus took and bore the sins of his people before God in their place. He wept then because he suffered under the guilt of those sins. He wept because he suffered under the shame and reproach for those sins. Shame and reproach before man and especially before God. And he wept because he suffered under the punishment of those sins at the hand of God his Father. It was a punishment in his soul. Think of the stress his conscience endured. He loved righteousness and he hated iniquity. He perfectly obeyed God's law. He honored it from his heart and mind with his words and in all that he did, and yet he was punished as the worst transgressor that ever lived. He who did only right in the sight of God bore the sins and punishment of one who had done only wrong. And in his agony, there was none to help. He suffered alone at the hand of sinful, hateful, cruel, merciless, unjust men. And yet, their torments were but light affliction compared to what he felt at the forsaking of his father. Now, we cannot truly understand the sufferings of Jesus under the weight of our sins. But we know this. He made supplications with strong crying and tears unto him who was able to save him from death. That's what we just read in Hebrews 5-7. Those things that came upon him, the weight of our sin, the forsaking by friends and family, the mocking and torture of his enemies. And especially the loss of the sense of God's presence in his soul altogether became such a weight that it caused him unspeakable sorrow in his soul and the pain in his body. A sorrow we will never, never know. The prophet Jeremiah spoke of Christ in these words. In Lamentation 1 verse 12 he says, Is it nothing to you, all you that pass by? Behold, and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow which is done unto me, wherewith the Lord hath afflicted me in the day of his fierce anger. There was never sorrow like his, and there never will be. His grief and woe is heard in his cry to his father from the cross under the burden of our sin and the punishment of God against us when he cried, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? As sinners, we are accustomed to shutting out the voice of our conscience and accustomed to hiding from God. We know very little of the effects of sin that the Lord Jesus felt. Sin in our conscience makes us sick in our body. We feel sadness, we feel depressed, we become confused by it, we forget truth we once held dear, and we don't know what to do. We feel lost, forsaken, afraid, without peace in unrest and find no comfort, and we are unable to receive comfort from any because God withholds the sense of His comfort from us. Without God's word, we are without hope. Now if by our own sin, we who drink iniquity like water, as Kevin Thacker was given that illustration in Rescue. It's just so natural for us to drink water, isn't it? We don't even think about it. Tip it up, drink it down. That's the way God says we drink iniquity like water. If we are so accustomed to sin and so natural, doing without thinking, if we who are such sinners know something of the weight of affliction on our own conscience in this, what of the holy, harmless Son of God who never knew sin, who hated iniquity, and who only loved righteousness? What would he who enjoyed unbroken communion in his soul with God at the deepest level feel if the sins of God's presence were removed from him because of the guilt and shame of sin? That is what happened in the Garden of Gethsemane. That is what happened on the Cross of Calvary. It was indescribable agony of soul. And it was all because of what Christ suffered for the sins of his people. That's the first reason Jesus wept. God described that separation of Christ as our sin bearer. That separation He experienced. He describes it by the prophet Isaiah when he said in Isaiah 59, listen to these words. The Lord's hand is not shortened that it cannot save, neither His ear heavy that it cannot hear. But here is the Lord Jesus hanging on the cross. forsaken by God, and these words, but your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you that he will not hear." These are the words of the Lord Jesus for our sins. When Jesus Christ bore the sins of his people, those sins became his. He knew for the first time and the only time what it meant for God not to hear him. Why didn't God hear him? Because the sins of his people became his own. Because he stood before God as the sinner, though he himself did no sin. Yet he felt the guilt of them in his conscience. This is why he cried, My God, why hast thou forsaken me? Never was there a cry so mournful as his. In Gethsemane and on the cross, he cried out of the depths of his soul, The Book of the Psalms is prophetic of the prayers that the Lord Jesus prayed in the days of His humiliation when He bore the sins of His people. Psalm 31 is one such prayer. In verse 5 of Psalm 31, the words Jesus spoke from the cross are recorded in prophecy when he said, "...into thine hand I commit my spirit." And yet, shockingly, another woeful cry is uttered by our Lord in that same Psalm when he said in verse 9, "...have mercy upon me, O Lord, for I am in trouble." Mine eye is consumed with grief, yea, my soul and my belly. For my life is spent with grief, and my years with sighing. My strength faileth because of mine iniquity. But I trusted in thee, O Lord. I said, Thou art my God. Psalm 40 is another prophetic prayer of our Lord Jesus. In that psalm we see again the full impact of what it meant for Jesus to personally do his Father's will And as our great high priest, he offered himself as the Lamb of God to make propitiation for the sins of his people. He felt the weight of the sins of his people as he spoke these words in Psalm 40, verse 12. Innumerable evils have compassed me about. Mine iniquities have taken hold upon me so that I am not able to look up. They are more than the hairs of mine head. Therefore, my heart faileth. When we hear someone cry out of great agony and sorrow, perhaps at the loss of a loved one, we are greatly moved to sympathy. Such a cry arrests us. It stops us in our tracks. We stand still and silently feel their pain. We know something of the loss of a loved one in life, gone, never to be seen in this life again. And death is so very, very sad, isn't it? But think, since the dawn of creation there was never heard a cry more mournful than when our Lord Jesus cried out of the darkness of his sufferings on the cross. That cry should have stopped all of creation in its tracks. The Great Creator, in human flesh, a perfect sinless man, cried in agony because he who never knew sin was now separated from God by the sins that were made his. And he felt the loss of God's presence as those sins bore down on his conscience. But though creation should have stopped, This is what happened instead. Jesus said, I looked on my right hand, and behold, there was no man that would know me. Refuge failed me. No man cared for my soul. No one shared his sorrow. He suffered alone. He suffered by himself. Hebrews 1.3 says, by himself he purged our sins. We ought to ask, and we must ask, why did God treat his son this way? The gospel answers that question. It was to reconcile sinners in accord with the infinite justice of God. He delivered his son to death that he might be just and justify the ungodly. That's amazing, isn't it? The one against whom we offended with our sin is the one who stooped to take our sin and bear it before God to make our peace with God. It was to bring His people to Himself who alienated themselves by their sins. It was to make known God's righteousness to the praise of the glory of His grace in the salvation of chosen sinners. It was to bring His people to Himself without a trace of sin in perfect righteousness. And so again, from 2 Corinthians 5, He hath made Him sin for us who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. And so we see something of why Jesus wept before God in his own sufferings. That's the most significant of all places where it says Jesus wept in scripture. He wept in sorrow of soul because of the sins of his people. That substitution, that is the work of our Savior. That is why we're saved. Because of what God saw in his sufferings and received in satisfaction from him for us. Now, in the three different accounts where Jesus wept, we see something of the character, of the heart of our great Savior, and we learn what He accomplished. This is eternal life, to know God in Christ, to be saved by His redeeming work. Let us therefore carefully consider why Jesus wept in this and in the other two accounts recorded in Scripture. In John 11, Jesus wept again. Jesus wept when he saw Mary and Martha and the Jews weeping. The Jews saw him weeping. They said, behold, how he loved him, thinking he was weeping for Lazarus. Jesus could have prevented Lazarus from dying. But he waited to come to Mary and Martha until their brother died. Why? Why did Jesus wait? Didn't he know those he loved were suffering great grief and sorrow? Didn't he know before Lazarus died that he would die? Of course he did. But it was God's will to glorify his son when sin and death were at the height of their strength against his people. And they were evidently beyond all human hope. And the Lord Jesus Christ, the resurrection and the life came. And he rescued Lazarus from the jaws of death. In this, we find all of our hope and salvation is in Christ alone. It's when we feel our weakest, when we have no hope in ourselves or in anyone else, and then we hear from God's Word that salvation is not in you, it's in Christ, and we look away from ourselves to him. Oh, what peace there is in rest in that look He came when all hope was lost. That is how God works in the lives of his people. Doesn't he tell us that throughout scripture? He told Moses of the Red Sea and the children of Israel, stand still. Their enemy is behind them, the Red Sea in front of them, no hope. And he said, stand still now and see the salvation of the Lord. Moses told Pharaoh to let Israel go. Pharaoh refused and mocked his words, the words of God. Then the Lord said to Moses, when Moses and all of Israel gave up, he said, listen, now shalt thou see what I will do to Pharaoh. That's in Exodus 6 verse 1. Faith is seeing what God has done in Christ, who in our sin and God's judgment against us left us dying in our sins without hope or remedy. As God told Israel by Moses, now shalt thou see what I will do Even so, the faith God gives us is seeing God's salvation in Jesus Christ and Him crucified. When we were without hope, when our enemies seemed unconquerable, then God showed us what He did in Christ. Though Jesus would raise Lazarus from the dead and comfort Martha and Mary by doing so, yet as they wept when Lazarus died, He also wept. See in this the heart of our great sympathetic high priest. He did not live and suffer and die in stoic detachment, as if everything's going to be all right. I'm just going to stand here and watch it go by. Faith in Christ does not make us insensitive to others. It heightens our compassion towards them. Christ felt the pain of his people. He felt the pain they felt. He bore their burdens. It says in Matthew 8.17 when he was healing the sick in his lifetime on earth. He says he himself took our infirmities and bore our sicknesses. You see, it cost Jesus personally to comfort and save his people. It cost him to heal the sick. It cost him to raise the dead. He himself suffered the consequences of the sins of his people when he bore them and entered into the sorrow of their sins to save us from our sins and give us the comfort and joy of his victory over sin and his reception by God. We must ever remember that the one who walked this earth, who had compassion on the hungry and on the sick and on the fainting and in the lepers and the blind and the widow, mother mourning the death of her only son, that in all these things and more, our Lord Jesus Christ bore the burden of our sins and our own needs and sorrows. This is the second lesson when Jesus wept. His compassion for sinners, his tender compassion for his people who had no strength against the consequences of their sin. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. Hebrews 13 verse 8. He is God over all. He who had compassion on Mary and Martha is the same one who now sits on the throne of glory. of his people, he says, in all their affliction he was afflicted. Isaiah 63 verse 9. Know this therefore, there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus. The man. The Lord Jesus Christ is both God and man. He alone, as God and man, knows what God thinks of sin. And he alone truly knows how sin affects man, because he suffered as a sinner before God for his people. And as mediator, he alone both satisfied God and saved his people from their sins. By himself, he satisfied God and saved his people. Yet in all of his majestic, sovereign power, he still feels the weakness of his people as the man who bore their burdens. He feels every burden they bear. We must admire him and adore him for his compassion. We must go to him and unburden our hearts at all times, considering that Jesus wept. We must look to him as all in our salvation to know the peace and joy of his promise that we have a high priest who can be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, our weaknesses, because he was tried and tempted and tested in all points that we are yet without sin. Hebrews 4.15. What greater comfort can there be in all of heaven and earth than to know that the Lord Jesus Christ sees and bears our every burden? To know that He carried our sorrows and the burdens of our sins and bore them in Himself, and now by His Spirit points us to His triumphant victory over every consequence our sin brought upon us, to make His grace toward us abound. That's amazing, isn't it? That's comfort. Let us take these promises to our bosom and fly to our great God and Savior as He has so comforted us by His gracious command when He says in 1 Peter 5, 7, casting all your cares upon Him for He careth for you. And let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need. Hebrews 4.16 Mary and Martha mourned for Lazarus. Jesus wept for his dearly beloved people. He tasted death for every adopted son of God. And he knows their infirmity, for he was in all points tempted, like we are. Now, not only did the Lord Jesus Christ weep in sorrow and agony as He bore the sins of His people, and not only did He weep in true sympathy for Mary and Martha, but in Luke 19, He wept over Jerusalem, and here we see something in our Lord that silences every excuse of sinners while exalting His great incomprehensible goodness. He sees the suffering and death that would come on the people who would soon reject him and put him to death, and yet he mourns for them because of the consequences of their sin. Jerusalem is the city that God blessed like no other on earth. He delivered these people from hundreds of years of Egyptian bondage. He brought them through the Red Sea on dry land. He destroyed Pharaoh and the Egyptian army in the height of their power and hatred against Israel. God gave Israel His laws which Christ would fulfill for His people. He gave them the priesthood with sacrifices and a tabernacle where God would meet with men, all of which Christ fulfilled in His own offering of Himself to bring us to God and make God known to us in His own self. And He destroyed nations in Canaan who were mightier than Israel because our Lord would destroy all the enemies of His people and give them eternal salvation and rest in His triumphant work. He gave Israel kings and judges who repeatedly delivered them from their enemies, and He worked miracles among them, time without number. He was longsuffering toward them and turned them from their rebellion and idolatry. Though they hardened their hearts against him, he sent prophet after prophet to them, and they killed their own prophets they would not hear. And finally God sent his only begotten Son, the Son of God in human flesh, taught in their synagogues. He healed their sick. He raised their dead. He worked miracles. He turned water into wine. He fed thousands. He exposed hypocrisy in their religious leaders. He walked and ate and he lived among them and did them only good for three and a half years in his public ministry. And yet these same people to whom he had given his word and for whom he had done so much would soon take him, falsely accuse him, and unjustly crucify him in merciless cruelty at the hands of their oppressive enemies, the Romans. The people of Jerusalem would kill the Prince of Life because they hated the Lord of Glory. Out of all the people in the world, the Lord Jesus Christ, according to his ancient prophecy, came to those Jews, to their city. And in spite of over 2,000 years of his goodness to them, these people now rejected their Messiah and the God who chose them to bless them as an earthly nation with earthly blessings above all nations of the earth. And Jesus now comes to their great city, Jerusalem. He showed himself openly to be God's Messiah. And what was their response? Did they recognize Him? Did they receive Him? No. They did not know the time of their visitation. They willfully rejected Him. They stubbornly held to their own self-righteousness in willful unbelief. And that is the occasion on which Jesus wept over Jerusalem. Here's a question. Why did the Lord of Glory, the Lord of Glory, the Almighty Sovereign, who can turn the King's heart whether so ever He will, Why did he weep over Jerusalem? Why would he who knows the end from the beginning weep over anything? Why would he who humbles proud hearts and grants repentance to God-opposing sinners weep for these people? Couldn't he save them if he wanted to? Could he who determines all things by his will know disappointment? Was there something deficient in his power to save? Did He need their permission? Did He require their decision? Did He require their cooperation in some way? Did He need to wait for them to exercise their will or do their part? Was Christ weeping somehow opposed to God's will? No. No. No, no, no. No to all these questions. You see, God gave His law to men. to us, and he warns us of judgment. But no man keeps his law. God sends his gospel to many, but few to whom it is sent are chosen to eternal life. Many are called, but few are chosen. Every man is accountable to God for his own sin. Ezekiel 18 says, The soul that sinneth, it shall die. If a man keeps God's law, he will live, but no one keeps it. Therefore, the curse of God's law is upon us all, for we all fail to keep it. The problem is not with God. The problem is with sinful men. Sin is all our fault. Every man in hell will confess that God's judgments are right and that his own personal damnation is his own personal fault. That is the torment of hell, to know that we did not do what we knew was right. And here in this place, Jesus Christ weeps over those people who were Israelites after the flesh. He was born to that nation. He came to the Jews, his own people after the flesh, but his own received him not. And here is a very sad thing. Unbelieving Israel refused Christ's words and His works. They knew He was God's Christ, but they rejected Him. He told them their righteousness was not righteousness before God, that it was filthy rags in God's sight. He left no room for men to boast, and they hated Him because He told the truth. His words stung their conscience, yet they did not seek refuge in Him. Isaiah 9 verse 13 says, they do not seek him who smites them. They did not turn to him and bow to him whose words smote their conscience. The people do not turn to him that smites them, neither do they seek the Lord of hosts." You see, as sinners, God's Word smites us when it shows us what we are and we're sinful. But it's not in order that we might go on in despair because we trust in our own righteousness, our own ability to do what God requires. It's intended to point us to the only Savior there is, the Lord Jesus Christ. So instead of turning to him that smites them, they stubbornly clung to their own righteousness, as men who worship idols cling to what their own hands have made. This condition, this sinful rejection of Christ, is not unique to unbelieving Jews. Every man, you and I included, by nature cling to our own righteousness. Every man, you and I included, fail to keep God's law. Romans chapter 3 says there is none righteous. No. Not one. There's none that understands. There's none that seek after God. They are all gone out of the way. God searched every heart of every man and woman and boy and girl over time. And he said they are all together become unprofitable. There's none that do us good. No, not one. And God's law tells us this, to shut our mouths so that when he shows us Christ, we will flee to him. But the Jews would not receive correction. They chose death rather than life. Men can choose death. We can choose death. But in our sinful nature, in our sinful will, we cannot choose life. Can man by his own will believe? Could Nicodemus? He heard Jesus' words, yet he did not believe Him. He did not understand, and he refused to believe what he heard. Jesus said, no, only what is born of the spirit is spirit. By nature we're only flesh. By nature we have no existence in our spirit. We cannot initiate, we cannot direct God, we can't bring about our own spiritual birth and creation. Can any person whose fleshly mind is not subject to the law of God come to Jesus Christ by his own will? Of course not. It is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth or strives, but of God that shows mercy. That's how salvation occurs. God has mercy. Can any man bring faith out of his own heart? No. No. Faith is not of yourselves. It is the gift of God, lest any man should boast. Can a sinner turn himself to God? No. We are dead in sins and enslaved by sin, accustomed to thinking and doing evil, and we cannot change our heart. If it were possible for us to discern or receive spiritual things, to change our mind in repentance and belief, then why did Christ earn the gift of repentance and give that gift to his people when he rose from the dead and sat on heaven's throne? Acts 5.31 says that he sits as prince and a savior to give repentance to Israel and the remission of sins. So to these questions we must hear the answer of scripture. No, we cannot take away this stony heart. And we cannot create a heart of flesh in our bosom. We are accustomed to doing evil. We cannot repent. We're like the leopard who cannot change his spots. Our sinful will will not incline God's sovereign will and His holy will because our will is sinful and against God by nature. We cannot bring faith out of our own unbelieving heart. It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle or a leopard to change his spots than for a sinner to turn and believe the gospel. This is God's work. This is God's miracle of life. Though God in his word commands us to cast away our transgressions and make a new heart and a new spirit for ourselves, we can't do it. We're spiritually dead. We cannot do one spiritual thing. Therefore, no, Jesus did not weep because he is unable to save. He did not weep because he was limited by man's sinful inability. And he did not weep because he needed but could not get man's cooperation. If that were the case, no man could be saved, especially not me. Fact is, Christ wept over this city because they would soon suffer for their own sins. Remember David? Remember how he wept for King Saul? Saul was David's enemy. Saul repaid David's loyalty to him with evil. Yet when Saul died, David lamented him. You can read about that in 2 Samuel chapter 1. It's a sad thing. David lamented Saul's death, his enemy. David also wept bitterly for his rebellious son Absalom. Absalom made himself king in his father's place. And so the Lord determined to bring evil upon Absalom, David's son. Absalom was therefore killed in the battle that he started against his own father David, just as we as sinners die in the war we started against God. When David heard that Absalom, his son, had been killed, he greatly lamented his lost son. Scripture says, the king was much moved, and he went up to the chamber over the gate, and he wept. And as he went, thus he said, O my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom, would God I had died for thee. O Absalom, my son, my son. David knew, in the low bottom of his heart, that it was for his own sin that God brought this judgment on his own household. And even though Absalom was the more immediate cause of his own death, yet David's sin was the sin that came before him in his conscience. But God put away David's sin, remember? Yet He did not put away Absalom's sin. Nothing. could bring greater grief to a father than to see his own son or daughter perish in their sins. Doesn't it make us pray, Lord, have mercy on my children and undo all the consequences of my own foolishness and save them. For your glory turned the evil of my sin as a cause for showing forth your grace. Doesn't it cause you to do that? And so, we also see not only David weeping for his son, his rebellious son Absalom, and for his persecutor King Saul. We also hear Jeremiah weeping. He said, Jeremiah chapter 8 verse 21, For the hurt of the daughter of my people am I hurt. The whole book of Lamentations is about this. Jeremiah wept for his people after the flesh because they suffered for their own wickedness. Not only did David and Jeremiah weep for lost sinners, but the Apostle Paul wept for unbelieving Jews who would never be saved. Paul said, I say the truth in Christ, I lie not, my conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Ghost that I have great heaviness and continual sorrow in my heart, for I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen, according to the flesh. I wonder if Paul was thinking about his own rebellion in self-righteousness when he thought those words, like David did, of his son Absalom. Now, God speaks of these men to show us his own disposition towards unbelieving Jews and Gentiles. David, Jeremiah, Paul, and others expressed genuine sorrow over their kinsmen because those people perished for their willful unbelief. And so, in Luke 19, the Lord Jesus Christ, a perfect man, and God over all, wept for unbelieving Jews. How can we reconcile these things? Jesus wept with Martha and Mary in sympathy, because He truly knew and bore their griefs, and this gives us as believers the greatest comfort, to know that we can go to our Savior, who feels our griefs and carried our burdens. And in the same way that Jesus sorrowed for Martha and Mary, we sorrow when one of our believing loved ones suffers, don't we? We sorrow for their suffering, we weep when they weep, we mourn when they mourn, and when they die, though we do not sorrow for them then, we do sorrow for ourselves, don't we? We don't sorrow for an unbelieving loved one who perishes because we know they didn't perish forever. They only died in their body and they soon will be raised. We feel the loss of their sweet fellowship, though, and we feel the loss of their love that we enjoyed on earth. And when a believer dies, we're sad because we've lost that sweet confession of a fellow sinner and the communion with them and their thankfulness and their love for the Lord Jesus that he saved them by his own grace. But when we lose an unbelieving loved one, we sorrow, both for ourselves, but mostly for them, don't we? I can think of no greater sorrow. We speak the glorious gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ to our unbelieving loved ones. We tell them Jesus Christ saves all by himself in spite of our sin. We tell them that He has by Himself purged our sins, that He removed every barrier between His people and Himself that we raised by our sins. And we tell them that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners. And we tell them that we are the chief of sinners. We tell them that when we were in blindness and in disobedience of our own unbelief, the Lord Jesus Christ made Himself known to us in His saving work on the cross. And yet, when these same loved ones die, who stubbornly cling to their own righteousness in rejection of Christ, we join with David and Jeremiah and Paul and the Lord Jesus sorrowing for them. This is the principle we see when Christ wept over Jerusalem. God does not take delight in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his wickedness, he says in Ezekiel 18. Yet for all of God's warnings, for all of His warnings of certain judgment to come in our natural sinful self, we're so proud that we oppose our own salvation and will not bow to the Lord Jesus Christ as a guilty, helpless sinner standing at the foot of the only Savior in heaven and earth. Therefore, for God to save a man, for God to save a man, He must raise that man from spiritual death. He must create that man in Christ and give him, make him a new spiritual man. He must grant us repentance and He must grant us repentance to acknowledge that Christ, crucified, risen and reigning, is everything in our salvation. Paul told Timothy, the servant of the Lord must not strive, but be gentle to all men in meekness, instructing those that oppose themselves, if God peradventure will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth. 2 Timothy 2.25 You see, salvation is a rescue mission. and it's a rescue that is all of grace. God calls dead sinners to life. He brings rebellious sinners to repentance. He gives unbelieving sinners faith, and he rescues hell-deserving sinners from the wrath to come. We were in Rescue Baptist Church. I heard an illustration from Gene Harmon. He said, when a lifeguard goes out to save a man who's drowning, The drowning man often times fights against the lifeguard. So much so that the lifeguard has to knock out the drowning man so that he can save him. What a picture of how God saves us. He has to bring us so far down, doesn't he? Till we have no strength. The Jews died for their sin and their unbelief. It was not for lack of sincerity on Christ's part. He only did them good. He worked miracles before them. He spoke the gospel to them. Yet, something more is needed to save sinners than seeing miracles with physical eyes and hearing the gospel with physical ears. Something more is needed than a warning of judgment to come. The Spirit of God himself must give us life and repentance and faith in Christ. He must create us a new man. He must take away the stony heart and give us a new heart, a heart of flesh. He must speak the gospel to us and open our heart to hear it. In the end, it will be shown that every man in hell refused to obey the light God gave him, and it will be shown that every man in hell despised God's goodness. And it will be shown that everyone in heaven was given eternal life out of God's pure, free grace in Christ, in spite of their wickedness. Those God saves are saved for one reason only. God determined to save them out of his own free will and grace. They are drawn to Christ because they were loved from everlasting before the foundation of the world. And they are saved because God determined to save them and give them eternal life. They are saved because God delivered up his son to death for them. And they are saved because the Spirit of God raised them from death, created them in Christ, birthed them as God's sons, and all this when they were dead in sins. It will be shown that everyone in heaven was saved by the power of God under the preaching of the gospel of Christ crucified, and that they were set free from bondage, even the bondage of their sins, so that they might believe Christ in obedience to the truth of the gospel. You see, sin is all man's doing, and hell is all man's deserving. And every man in hell will bow his knee to Christ as Lord and Judge of all. All who come to God on the basis of their decision, rather than God's choice, come to God by their free will, rather than bowing to God's sovereign will. And all who trust in their own works rather than Christ's work, and who trust their own experience rather than looking to Christ's experience in his life and death, has their only righteousness before God. All who thus look to anything but Christ will receive strict justice from God. That's what Galatians 5 means when it says, If you be circumcised, Christ shall profit you nothing. If you do something, outward, something seemingly insignificantly small, in order to become saved, that's in addition to what Christ has done. Christ profits you nothing. You're a debtor to do the whole law. This is the saddest thing in all the world, isn't it? Yet God will not compromise his justice. We can only answer God's justice one way. How? In the Lord Jesus Christ. If we do not answer God's justice in Christ, that is, if we do not look only to Christ as our answer to God, then we will answer God for all that he requires in our own person. All who trust their works will receive justice from God for their works. And though sin is man's doing, righteousness is Christ's doing. Isn't that true? He alone has done all that God requires. It says in Romans 10.4, Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone that believeth. He alone can remove our sins. He alone can make us holy before God. He alone can command life to us in the deadness of our sins. He alone can give faith to an unbelieving sinner. He alone can save a hell-deserving sinner. Sin is all of our doing, but salvation is all God's doing. We are not saved because we believe. We believe because God, according to His eternal purpose in Christ, granted us salvation with faith when we were in unbelief. He says in Acts 13.48, as many as were ordained to eternal life believed. Jesus wept over Jerusalem because they would soon receive the just reward of their impenitent hearts. He was not frustrated. He wept for their suffering, but he did not object to or oppose God's justice. He did not oppose God's everlasting will to reject them. He said, I thank Thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because Thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent and hast revealed them unto babes. Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in Thy sight. Jesus sorrowed for unbelieving Israel as one sorrows for an unbelieving family or friend. Unbelieving sinners can therefore find nothing in Christ to excuse their sin. We can't find anything in Christ to excuse our sin. He is only good. Let us, therefore, take this third example of Christ weeping for these unbelieving sinners who would soon be judged, and cast aside our stubborn pride and our self-righteousness, abandon all trust in our own experience or decision or will, and know that if you or I are saved, it will be only by God's will, by Christ's work, because of His faithfulness and by His preserving grace. He bought and sought and calls His own sheep by name, and He will not let one of them perish. But if you find no need, if you and I find no need to cry to the Lord Jesus and trust Him to save you by Himself and God's people, and I weep for you. O fellow sinner, cry, Lord, save me, a great sinner. Lord Jesus, I have no answer before God. Be my answer. Answer all to God for me. Let your blood and righteousness be my salvation. As you gave yourself for your elect, give yourself for me. Do what is impossible for me, save me for your glory. All who thus call on Christ from their heart, looking to him for all, shall not be put to shame. The judge of all the earth will do right, and yet God has not forgotten to be gracious. He will be gracious to sinners and save sinners to the praise of the glory of His grace. And He will save sinners according to His righteousness. The Lord Jesus Christ wept three times. Once in the agony of his own soul because he was a substitute for his people. Once in the compassion of sympathy for his sorrowing people. And once in sorrow for those who, because of their own sin and willful rejection, brought God's judgment on themselves. And yet, according to God's will, it's recorded in scripture that he even agreed with God on this. The Lord Jesus Christ is perfect as man and God, and he shows us the heart of God and the heart of a pure and holy man. Let's pray. Lord Jesus, we thank you for all that you are. Thank you for your goodness, for your tender compassion towards your people. Thank you for substituting yourself willingly and fully answering every charge of justice against us for our sins, making satisfaction and fulfilling all of our obedience in your own righteousness and then telling us this with your spirit so that we might live and believe you and find all comfort in life in you. Lord, we pray that you would do these things for your namesake, for your glory, and help us to see you only and trust you at all times. We pray for this grace for all who are here now. Speak your peace and your own work on the cross to them and draw us to yourself with irresistible drawing power. Save us for your namesake. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.